In an emotional essay written for Stand Up to Cancer, St. Clair shared that she was diagnosed with stage 2b estrogen positive breast cancer on September 15th, 2015, and subsequently went through 16 rounds of chemo therapy and 12 weeks of radiation.

"To say I was afraid of chemo is the understatement of the year. My biggest fear was that I would be too sick to care for my then two-year-old daughter," St. Clair wrote in her super candid essay.

She went on to write that she tested out a variety of “chemo hacks” provided to her by her doctor, and — with the help and support of her husband and “work wife” Lennon — she actually was able to avoid some of the worst of the chemo side-effects.

“Every chemo session, they would pack me in ice, as Lennon puts it, like a ‘choice piece of holiday meat,'” she wrote. “They distracted me from the intense pain of the cold by reading aloud from old Oprah magazines and feeding me Teddy Grahams and Cheez-Its, while I froze my scalp for eight hours using ‘cold caps’ to keep my hair from falling out (I only lost 30 percent).”

And also that, “I wore frozen booties and mittens to avoid getting neuropathy in my hands and feet. I took supplements my doctor recommended for the neuropathy and to strengthen my hair. Twice a week I went to an acupuncturist. I changed my diet to include more fiber, fish and vegetables (and about a pound of dark chocolate a day) with the help of a cancer nutritionist. I tried to walk at least twenty minutes a day.”

"Did I still feel like I’d been run over by a Mack Truck? Absolutely. It’s chemo, after all — they don’t call it the Red Devil for nothing. And I lost enough hair that when the new hair started to grow in, I resembled Dog the Bounty Hunter. But all these “chemo hacks” made it possible for me to fake it enough that my daughter never knew I was sick, so she was never afraid. And for that, I am eternally grateful."

In terms of the show and her third season character arc, St. Clair wrote,

"In the new season, my character, Emma, gets diagnosed with breast cancer and undergoes the exact treatment I did. We were worried about bringing such serious subject matter to a comedy show, but we’ve always written what we’ve lived. And our real story is that with the help of her best friend, and the people who love her, my character is able to get through the treatment and actually emerge somehow happier and more fulfilled than she was before she was diagnosed."

It can’t be easy to open up to the world about such a personal issue, and we’re so grateful that St. Clair is sharing her story. We are 100% confident it will help other women going through cancer treatment, as well as the loved ones who are supporting them.